The invention is based on an apparatus for transferring articles to a packaging machine conveyor apparatus.
In a packaging system in which a plurality of production machines, such as wrapping machines, supply one high-output packaging machine, such as a cartoning machine, the capacity of which is several times that of a production machine, the conveyor apparatus has a plurality of readying devices associated with it. The articles to be packaged are readied one at a time by each readying device for transfer to a bucket of the continuously operating conveyor apparatus, in the vicinity of a transfer apparatus. In systems of this kind, known for example from U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,178,120 and 3,879,920, an endless transfer apparatus, having driver dogs, engages the readied articles and pushes them into buckets of the conveyor apparatus extending beneath it. In the known packaging systems, the transfer apparatuses each extend over a plurality of readying devices, so that one transfer apparatus transfers several articles at a time to various buckets of the conveyor apparatus.
The individual transfer apparatuses are rigidly coupled to the drive of the packaging machine, and their dogs are moved in chronological synchronism with the speed of the conveyor apparatus buckets, which means that for a certain number of readying devices, a certain succession of buckets of the conveyor apparatus is supplied with articles. Another factor is that since the transfer apparatus is driven at a uniform speed, matching that of the conveyor apparatus, its dogs strike a readied article at a relatively high speed. Such an impact can entail breakage, raising the rejection rate, in articles that are vulnerable to pressure or shock.